Another Technical Guide from Nikon

Somehow I missed it when it was posted, but Nikon added a D800/D800E Technical Guide Picture Control Edition PDF to their knowledge base in mid-2013. It’s possible I missed it because it was just added to the D800 Technical Guide page as an additional downloadable item.

This “new” PDF has an interesting section called “Matching Settings to Your Subject” that describes several Picture Control adjustment uses for food, portraits, and interiors, as well as more detailed information about managing Picture Controls. Anyone using an EXPEED-based Nikon DSLR to shoot JPEG images will probably get something out of the short PDF.

However, be careful with Nikon’s language. They write things like “increase reds” or “greens more vivid” when referring to a Hue change, for instance. That’s not how Hue works, as I note in my books. Colors are shifted when you modify Hue. All colors. So while skin tones may shift more towards a red center or greens move away from having a blue tint, every other color is shifting around the color wheel, as well. Hue shifts work best when you have a predominance of a color you need to move and no other colors that will become problematic with the shift.

Since Nikon isn’t often good at promoting these kinds of additions to their knowledge base, it pays to every now and again do a search of the Nikon database to see if something new has shown up. That’s how I found this PDF I had overlooked, for instance. So what search did I do? I selected Digital SLR Cameras and Manuals and Guides as the filters, then searched on the term PDF. This brings up all the user manuals, plus all those little bonus guides Nikon has produced, such as the ones on autofocus with the pro bodies, the original D800 Technical Guide, and several others that you might not have known existed.